See how they ran / Arnold who? Matt Gonzalez surprised insiders -- and gave Gavin Newsom the political scare of his life -- when the San Francisco mayoral election turned into a clash of the classes. Laurel Wellman reports on the scenes behind the scene.

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A Gonzalez head /sign makes its rounds on the floor of his Mission headquarters, election night.Mayoral candidate, Matt Gonzalez, and his supporters do final campaigning and hold election night party at his Mission headquarters.
CHRISTINA KOCI HERNANDEZ / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT

Photo: CHRISTINA KOCI HERNANDEZ

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A Gonzalez head /sign makes...

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Secretary of State, Kevin Shelley, sneaks up behind Newsom putting his hands under Newsom's arms. Mayoral candidate, Gavin Newsom, campaigns at the reception at the Union member Moose feed at the SF Hilton.
CHRISTINA KOCI HERNANDEZ / The Chronicle

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Gonzalez supporter, Nicole Walter, stretches her back over a couch at his Mission headquarters, after a march/rally she participated in for his campaign.
CHRISTINA KOCI HERNANDEZ / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT

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Mayoral candidate, Matt Gonzalez, and his supporters do final campaigning on the phones, the night of the election, at his Mission headquarters.
CHRISTINA KOCI HERNANDEZ / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT

Photo: CHRISTINA KOCI HERNANDEZ

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Mayoral candidate, Matt Gonzalez, and...

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Patti Carlisi, (r), is moved to tears by Newsom's victory news at the Fillmore, election night and shares joy with (L) Xander Kawano.
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Photo: CHRISTINA KOCI HERNANDEZ

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Patti Carlisi, (r), is moved...

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Mayoral candidate, Matt Gonzalez, readies to be interviewed in the morning on KFRC radio, in SF.
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Photo: CHRISTINA KOCI HERNANDEZ

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Mayoral candidate, Matt Gonzalez,...

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Press at the Fillmore waits for Newsom to emerge to give victory speech.
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Photo: CHRISTINA KOCI HERNANDEZ

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Press at the Fillmore waits...

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Gonzalez takes a break in his office at City Hall, on election day, from his hectic schedule.
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Photo: CHRISTINA KOCI HERNANDEZ

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Gonzalez takes a break in his office...

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Gavin Newsom runs to another event after speaking at a breakfast for African-American leadrers at the African-AZmerican Arts and Culture Center, in SF.
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Photo: CHRISTINA KOCI HERNANDEZ

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Gavin Newsom runs to another...

See how they ran / Arnold who? Matt Gonzalez surprised insiders -- and gave Gavin Newsom the political scare of his life -- when the San Francisco mayoral election turned into a clash of the classes. Laurel Wellman reports on the scenes behind the scene.

At the Gavin Newsom for Mayor headquarters on Van Ness, we were in for a staggeringly dull news conference. But maybe that shouldn't have been a surprise. Newsom, eager to demonstrate gravitas, had positioned himself as the policy-wonk candidate. A large wall sign in the conference room highlighting his campaign promises led with this bullet point: "Unbundle city contracts."

Catchy, sure -- though maybe not up there with: "Abolish bread lines."

Various community educational leaders had turned out to announce their support for Newsom, a formal pageant of endorsement enacted repeatedly by candidates in every election, but not generally the stuff of breaking news. Few reporters had even bothered to show.

"Matt's got it easy because he started late," said Newsom, sitting in his gray-carpeted office afterward. "I had an election last year. Not only did I have a re-election in District 2, but I also had a citywide election with Care Not Cash."

It was 3 1/2 weeks before the election, and a new set of polls was out. "Now I'm no longer the front-runner. Matt is," said Newsom. "Having been the front-runner for so long -- it's a different campaign."

Though he was as preppily handsome and hair-gelled as usual, he was pale, and his skin looked bumpy. And improbably, given previous adulation of the clean-cut Newsom as San Francisco's nightclub-owning groovy new mayor-apparent -- even a gushing feature in W magazine -- he'd even been cast as unhip. "You'd think a 35-year-old would be something new," he said, before recollecting that he'd recently turned 36.

Then again, Newsom had been campaigning for most of the past two years, and his schedule was taking its toll. "The eating at 11 o'clock at night has probably been the most distressing to me," he said. "Last night it was 11:14 when I sat down and turned on the TiVo to watch 'Face the Nation.' "

Sounds like a good time.

"You do it (run for office) because you're driven," Newsom said. "You have to be somewhat driven inside."

The debate goes on

Nearly two weeks after the fact, people are still talking about the mayoral runoff. San Francisco is an excitable city, sure -- but that's a lot of excitement, and in an age in which political leadership is conflated with celebrity, a lot of it focused on Newsom's former opponent, Matt Gonzalez: Days after the polls closed, callers to one radio show were apparently trying to reach consensus on his suits (rumpled) and voice (appealing).

Things had started off slowly enough: The Newsom campaign billed itself as a candidacy of ideas, with 21 policy papers Newsom would talk about with anyone who would stand still long enough; the actual election was viewed as something of a formality. But when Gonzalez made the runoff, the notion of following the candidates and the campaign around -- just like Dian Fossey, only with parking issues -- became irresistible.

After all, there's nothing like a nice, divisive election -- complete with such venerable rituals as house parties, merchant walks, fist-gnawingly boring endorsement news conferences, dirty tricks and political drama from someone with the last name of Alioto -- to bring us all together again as San Franciscans. Group hug, anyone?

Inside the cult

"Sometimes I really think we're a cult here," said freelance writer h. brown, self-styled minister of propaganda for the Gonzalez campaign, who'd set up an office in its Mission Street headquarters and papered it with his friend's press clippings.

Just down the hallway, a big room with a bare concrete floor, large windows and a baby grand piano in one corner had been dubbed the Elector8 Lounge. A flotilla of worn, teal-colored loveseats could accommodate tired campaign workers, and volunteer chefs cooked food for them, too. "We have the best vegetarian kitchen in the city right now," said brown.

Strings of origami cranes hung from the ceiling; a crane-making party was scheduled for Sunday. At various other times, children were to be found stenciling designs on the windows. For some, the whole thing seemed to be a happening, a be-in, as much as a political campaign.

Entering the race late had been risky for Gonzalez; he'd irked some people by splitting progressive support, and early polls in the general election gave him just 10 percent of the vote. Even when he made the runoff, pundits calculated that he couldn't possibly win unless voter turnout were significantly higher than it had been in the general election.

On the other hand, Gonzalez had compensating advantages, including the endorsement of five other members of the Board of Supervisors, apparent hordes of adoring friends and acquaintances ready to laud everything from his integrity to his reading habits, and serious cred with the city's underground arts scene. Then there was a response from the public -- especially the youthful public, with whom Gonzalez came to enjoy 65 percent support -- which could be summed up as, "Good God, he's one charismatic guy."

"The Gonzalez campaign was truly a mobilizing campaign," says Rich DeLeon, professor of political science at San Francisco State University and author of "Left Coast City: Progressive Politics in San Francisco, 1975-1991." "It really attracted young people who had not been involved -- who were perhaps cynical and apathetic -- into the active electorate."

Not-so-hidden hormone factor

This newly active electorate was visible outside the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center, where the candidates appeared separately at a forum on educational issues on Nov. 22. Despite a largely unfriendly crowd, Newsom doggedly plowed through his program, impressing some audience members with fluent citations of budget numbers and statistics such as, "70 percent of teen pregnancies are between the hours of 3 and 6."

"Guess we don't need recreational programs, then," muttered the middle- aged woman in front of me. After Newsom had exited the building -- to unsporting cries of "Bull -- !" outside -- Gonzalez arrived, to wild cheering on the sidewalk.

"The press has been suggesting I'm trying to start a class war in San Francisco," said Gonzalez. One man applauded. The crowd laughed.

"He's obviously working for Newsom," said Gonzalez. The crowd laughed harder.

Meanwhile, the grassroots of the Gonzalez campaign was still enlisting supporters. At one of several fund-raising house parties that night, candles were burning low in a funky Lower Haight flat and the twenty- and thirty- something revelers had reached that late stage of merriment at which control of the stereo is a recurring issue. Gonzalez campaign worker Tom Kahl stood chatting with platinum-haired party hostess Elizabeth Chandler.

"There's very little to do because they're all so enthusiastic," he told us. "What do I have to tell you about Matt?" he asked Chandler, to demonstrate his point.

In the kitchen, as Dolly Parton battled Stevie Wonder battled Britney Spears, Alexander Rivas explained his own views on the candidate. "He's a humble man. He's also exceptionally articulate, without being patronizing."

"He's a handsome fellow," added Mike Mauss.

"He's not really my type," said Rivas.

A sign on the bathroom door featured a picture of Gonzalez clipped from a campaign flyer, with a cartoon speech balloon reading, "This is my favorite BATHROOM in the whole world. Please knock!" and then, below, a thought bubble: "Gavin Newsom never knocks."

Hissing and howling

The next day, at the Jones Memorial United Methodist Church, a debate between the candidates got off to a rowdy start as the partisan crowd, many wearing campaign T-shirts, greeted the candidates with competing chants of "New-som! New-som! New-som!" and "Matt! Matt! Matt! Matt!"

Resentment of Newsom -- in particular, resentment of his personal wealth -- helped energize some Gonzalez supporters. "Gavin, there's money falling out of your pockets!" yelled a young man with funky glasses and a blond goatee. And then, moments later: "Getty!"

"Let me just say I joined the Green Party at the same time you wrote a check for $500 to the Republican Party," retorted Gonzalez. His supporters whooped delightedly.

The sheer theater of it all -- the audience hissing in outrage and howling with glee, or catcalling and heckling when the occasion warranted -- lengthened the debate 20 minutes past its scheduled hour, but everyone seemed more disappointed than otherwise when time was eventually called. "It's 4:20!" yelled one man, wearing an American flag as a robe and a huge hat decorated with artificial marijuana leaves, and bursting into song as the crowd made for the exits. "It's 4:20, in the laa-aand of the free, and the hoo-oome of the brave."

No rest for the weary

At yet another Newsom news conference, this one with Chinese American elected officials announcing their support for the candidate, television camera crews were setting up at the back of the room.

"If they'd let me sleep, I'd be OK," said campaign manager Jim Ross.

"There is no sleep," answered Newsom, entering. He stood, hands clasped in front of him, nodding occasionally, rocking on the balls of his feet and listening to a succession of speakers praise him. When it was over, despite the 21 policy papers, the assembled media really just wanted to ask him one question: What about Mayor Willie Brown's comments that Gonzalez was sexist, racist and had "some kind of defect in his head?"

"For me, I don't believe that my opponent is a bigot or a racist," said Newsom. "I don't believe that at all." But it had been a bad week, what with three-time mayoral hopeful Angela Alioto's announcement that she'd traded her endorsement of Newsom for some sort of homeless-czar position -- though unpaid -- within his administration. The phrase "vice mayor" began floating around. There was talk of Frank Jordan's infamous 1995 morning-show appearance, when he inexplicably stepped into a shower nude with two disc jockeys.

For respite, we dropped in on the "Art for Matt" benefit, where Gonzalez helped auction for $600 the tie he'd worn the day he was voted president of the Board of Supervisors.

The Newsom side, for its part, mocked the bohemian flavor of the Gonzalez operation, accusing it of shallow negativity. " 'Oh, Gavin Newsom is evil, man, ' " said Newsom spokesman John Shanley. "'Come and look at some art with us, man.' I'm getting bored with their campaign."

Smoking gun!

Then a mysterious e-mail appeared, and suddenly, the left was having some real fun, a break from its ordinarily lugubrious occupation of the moral high ground. The missive at issue urged Green Party members to protest former Vice President Al Gore's appearance in San Francisco to endorse Newsom. The Gonzalez campaign issued a memorable press release, which read in part, " 'This is an easy one to connect the dots on,' continued [Aaron] Peskin. 'And the dots connect all the way back to Newsom's Internet address. In this case, the smoking gun is a computer somewhere in the Newsom campaign headquarters.'

"The Sunday revelation leaves more than egg on the face of the Newsom campaign, which seems to be spinning out of control. This newest scandal will darken the already black cloud hanging above Gavin Newsom."

Dots! Smoking gun! Egg! Black cloud! Demand for metaphor had outstripped all rational supply, and there was still a week and a half to go in the campaign. At a hastily organized news conference, the assembled media representatives were disgruntled to learn that Gonzalez himself would not be appearing. A clamorous knot of scribes besieged Gonzalez's already besieged campaign spokesman, Ross Mirkarimi, who blamed a scheduling conflict.

"We won't be bumping anything for this," a television camera operator said meaningfully.

Former mayor and Gonzalez supporter Art Agnos, in a surely-not- coincidental green shirt, took the microphone to deplore the turn of events: "Something is rotten here."

Afterward, we gave way to the overwhelming temptation to ask him about the rumor -- begun by post-relevant Fangxaminer columnist Warren Hinckle -- that Agnos had set up a portable putting green in Gonzalez's Mission Street headquarters. Mirkarimi had denied the report -- "Warren Hinckle is so far out there in the stratosphere that he makes Hunter S. Thompson look normal" --

but, well ...

Hinckle's "got a very vivid imagination," said Agnos. "It's goofy."

Outside, the Newsom campaign's Heather Hiles, who'd apparently been ejected from the news conference, asked us what had happened. Attempts at spying were routine: Newsom officials, like Hiles and Jim Ross, were seen at various Gonzalez news conferences, while Gonzalez volunteers took notes on Newsom's speeches.

Well, if there were Newsom operatives at the Great American Music Hall that Sunday night, where Cake and Jonathan Richman were playing a benefit for Gonzalez, they wouldn't have found themselves in friendly territory. Though the candidate appeared tired and was losing his voice, his speech touched on such esoterica as the Free Soil Party and New Zealand's electoral system; he was more than usually sound bite-unfriendly. Nevertheless, the crowd cheered his references to New Zealand's decriminalization of marijuana, preservation of old-growth forests and stance against genetically modified foods. (Note to self: New Zealand approaching ice-cold level of coolness; check airfares, "Whale Rider" rental situation.)

In a swipe at the Newsom-Alioto alliance, Gonzalez promised to make Richman his "vice mayor" before adding, on a more sincere note, that Richman had "been a great inspiration to me just as a human being." He scoffed at Newsom's denials of involvement in the e-mail incident. "I just wanna say their campaign is full of s -- !" he said. "These guys are f -- liars!"

Pandemonium.

Big man-tears

"I was kind of weepy," confessed musician and Gonzalez supporter Marc Capelle, describing his reaction to the "f -- liars" moment a couple of nights later at the Make-Out Room. "Big man-tears were going to flow."

Gonzalez himself was leaning against the bar, watching one of the bands, drinking a tequila neat and looking more abstractedly aloof than usual. That afternoon, former Vice President Al Gore -- in town to endorse Newsom -- had referred to the Gonzalez campaign, indirectly, as a "cult of personality."

"What a flattering comment," said Gonzalez. He reflected. "I have the long view about this stuff. I sort of think there's an inevitability for politics to change. Someone wants to call it a campaign of personality -- I kind of think it's part of a larger social movement. I'm just the front guy right now."

Gore's appearance at Newsom's "Great Cities, Great Ideas" forum at the Regency Ballroom had been intended to bolster Newsom's support, and the effect of the organized might and machinery of the Democratic Party brought to bear was indeed impressive. Campaign workers scurried through the crowd, distributing carefully homemade-looking Newsom signs in preparation for spontaneous displays of enthusiasm.

To a standing ovation and chants of "New-som! New-som!" and "Ga-vin! Ga- vin!" the candidate strode onto the stage and did a little hop step on his way to the podium. "Aw-right!" he said, in his best gravelly, Bill Pullman-as- president-in-"Independence Day" public-speaking voice. "That's my kind of introduction! This is my kind of energy, too!"

Following ritualistic raised-hand clasping, Gore told the crowd that he was "passionately in favor of Gavin Newsom. I want to see him become the next mayor." Afterward, audience members slipped away as the two got wonky over the information economy and "reinventing government."

Then there was the televised debate that evening, the last of the campaign, which Gonzalez felt he'd "probably won" because he'd gotten his message out. He'd also delivered some offhand jabs -- like, "Supervisor Newsom, the matter was actually brought to my attention by your vice mayor."

At the Make-Out Room, the band finished its set, and Gonzalez headed toward the stage. "He's the indie-rock Kennedy," said Capelle.

"I think you should check the well-worn heels on the Doc Martens," whispered poet and SFGate.com columnist Beth Lisick. "They're almost rounded."

Happily, given the adoring audience, the candidate was on form, making sardonic reference to his critics. "I'm just grateful that San Francisco is ready to elect a communist from outer space who's a racist," he said. "It really touches and warms my heart." The crowd cheered; there were shouts of "Gon-zo!"

Where's Gonzo?

Gonzo had already canceled one appointment with the Chronicle's editorial board, so it didn't come as a total surprise when he called off his scheduled interview with us the next day. Politics is heartbreaking, but we went straight back for more -- in this case, to the last big Newsom fund-raiser of the election, held in the 15th floor ballroom of the Merchants' Exchange Building on California Street in the heart of the Financial District. We hadn't been invited, exactly -- but figured we could just show up anyway.

We figured wrong. On arrival we first had to get past a long table staffed by attractive women taking campaign donations, including one worried- looking functionary in a low-cut black cocktail dress who claimed she could lose her job if she let us in without getting permission first. She disappeared into a closet to call John Shanley on her cell phone.

A new arrival was chatting with a European-accented blond woman. "I'm sure I'll see your daughter in there if she's as beautiful as you are," he said. "What is her name?"

"Flora," she answered.

Good Lord. Servers rushed past with trays of canapes as we stood by a fireplace of baronial proportions, in whose stone mantel was carved the motto "Warm Ye in Friendship."

This fraternal sentiment did not, apparently, apply to journalists, and Hiles emerged from the Valhalla concealed beyond the end of the paneled hallway to explain that because socially prominent people were at the event, media coverage would necessarily be inappropriately society page-ish. Besides, if they were to let us in, they'd have to let all the other journalists in, too. These journalists were not, of course, physically present.

For our part, we argued that the exigencies of equal time virtually demanded we attend; after all, we'd been to countless Gonzalez parties. "Well, cafes and parties -- that's what he has to offer," said Hiles. She walked us to the elevator.

BOO-hah! BOO-hah!

The Saturday before the election, a motorized cable car was parked on Van Ness, draped with a banner reading, "Teamsters Local 665 Supports Gavin Newsom. "

"We need to win. This is not a joy ride. This is a necessity," President Bob Morales of the Teamsters Union Joint Council 7 told the crowd inside. An old union guy yelled, "BOO-hah!"

Newsom took the stage. "You know what's at stake," he said. "It's not about me. It's not about the other guy." He was red-faced, shouting. "We're not here to party-build for some third party!"

"BOO-hah!" yelled the guy.

"You guys, I'm losing my voice, but if you'll be my voice for the next three days, I'll be your voice for the next four years!"

"BOO-hah! BOO-hah!"

Photocopied maps were distributed, individual blocks marked in highlighter pen. With an operation like this, how could the campaign lose?

But out in the city, victory seemed much less certain. Reaction on Clement Street, where Newsom and a few supporters were making a merchant walk -- a ritual enacted repeatedly in the course of both campaigns -- could generously be described as tepid, though the candidate got a round of applause from diners at the Tong Palace restaurant.

At the New May Wah supermarket, he strode confidently past bins of lotus roots, bitter melon, silk squash, opo and chayote, waving and smiling. "Go back to Pacific Heights!" yelled one angry female shopper in the produce aisle.

Unhesitatingly, Newsom replied: "Marina."

Walking the talk

Merchant walks the next day with Gonzalez and actor Danny Glover, who'd not only endorsed the Green Party candidate but also flown down from a movie set in Vancouver to appear with him, weren't quite so organized. At Sixth and Clement, about a hundred Gonzalez supporters cheered and waved signs until word spread that the stop had been canceled and everyone was to head for Fillmore and Geary.

The candidate again failed to materialize; on the other hand, a yellow fire truck arrived, filled with drumbeating Gonzalez supporters chanting, "Matt for peace! Matt for mayor!" and distributing flowers. One man wore a Viking helmet and rode a unicycle back and forth across the intersection.

Eventually, the crowd set off, a cross between a demonstration and a scavenger hunt, and located Gonzalez -- along with Glover, Supervisor Chris Daly and Public Defender Jeff Adachi -- holding an impromptu news conference just off Geary. After a group photo, everyone still seemed energetic, so the afternoon ended with Gonzalez at the head of a long column of supporters marching up Fillmore to Sacramento and back down to Geary, chanting, "Who's the best? Matt!" -- which made us wonder what the appropriate facial expression would be, under the circumstances. "You tell me," answered the candidate.

Did he feel the energy in the city had shifted?

It was hard to know, he said. "All the people who shake your hand -- is that because they're with you?"

Calling up the reserves

And Newsom still had reserves of strength: Bill Clinton and Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom. At Laurel Village on California Street, he was joined by his wife, the television legal commentator, wearing a shiny cranberry satin trench coat and stiletto-heeled black knee boots. One passer-by stopped to confide that after he'd seen her picture in the previous day's Chronicle, he'd decided to vote for Newsom. "Did you hear that, Gav?" asked Guilfoyle Newsom.

Neither was the glamour offensive lost on the patrons of Starbucks, where a short, elderly woman seemed very nearly overcome. "I love you!" she told Guilfoyle Newsom. "I saw you on TV! You are gorgeous! Lovely! God bless you."

Clinton, though, wasn't in town yet, and when "westerly winds" delayed the private plane flying the former president in from New York, we had time to reflect on the question of whether the Clinton appearance was really the best possible use of the Newsom campaign's final hours. The scene at headquarters resembled an airline passenger gate -- on Thanksgiving, during a blizzard --

and the Secret Service was roaming the crowd, corralling reporters into particular areas just because it could.

Tired workers slumped against the walls, surrounded by their coats and bags. Toddlers explored the surprisingly wide range of vocalizations between whimpering and howling. One man was sitting on the floor, trying to nap; he'd been there since 8 or 8:30 that morning. "I did this for Jordan in 1999," he said. In the back of the room, state Attorney General Bill Lockyer gave his baby a bottle.

the Clinton/Gore 1992 campaign song -- was blasting over the PA system; a succession of camera flashes marked the otherwise hidden progress of the former president toward the podium.

Clinton's speech was so brief that it was hard to see why he'd flown for six hours to deliver it. He called the Democrats "the party of empowerment." He said a Newsom victory "will go like a rifle shot across America." He called for that final, extra effort. "If you don't think, starting right now, you can make a difference, you're wrong," he told the campaign workers. And that was pretty much it. "Don't Stop" blasted from the P.A., and anyone who was leaving stampeded to the stairs.

Was the event actually worth taking time out of the final hours before the election? "I was worried about it. [Newsom's field manager] Alex [Tourk] was worried about it," said campaign manager Jim Ross, later. "But when you compare the benefit we got out of it in the press -- it was the lead story on all the TV stations. It's tough to get a net positive story the day before an election."

The longest day

"I'm so disappointed in Clinton," said Democrats for Matt Gonzalez's Ray Guiducci. "(He's) endorsing Newsom just based on party label." But happy chaos prevailed at Gonzalez headquarters, where, in the tented parking lot behind the building, two tall Christmas trees decorated with white lights had been set up on either side of the podium on which the candidate would later appear, and every single one of the 4,000 volunteers seemed to be rushing around the building on some urgent mission. Because of hostility over The Chronicle's coverage of the campaign, an unseen Mirkarimi had apparently ordered that I be escorted around the premises by a campaign worker.

By contrast, Newsom's headquarters seemed empty and quiet. Where was everyone? "Getting out the vote," said Ross.

Victory -- and payback

It was anticlimactic when the suspense that evening came down to the question of whether Gonzalez could overcome the lead Newsom had taken in the absentee balloting. At Gonzalez headquarters, when it became apparent he couldn't, a few people booed as Gonzalez offered his congratulations to Newsom. Gonzalez looked stern. "If there's anybody that can't handle this, then they should just leave, because really -- the man won this election."

Across town, at Newsom's party at the Fillmore, a doorman consulted his list of names, and we were not on it. It was a little too obvious that he was enjoying turning people away. "We have congressmen on this list," the doorman said. A thuglike bouncer started yelling at us to move to one side. It was now raining so improbably hard that the downpour looked less like actual weather and more like a clumsily executed special effect, and three police officers had stationed themselves at the top of the steps.

"Payback's a bitch," one well-groomed man already leaving the party said, loudly -- though it was hard to say at whom this comment was directed. Beyond another police line, a small crowd was chanting, "F -- Gavin Newsom! F -- Gavin Newsom!" One woman held a sign that read, "Burn in hell Newsom."

On the corner, a tall African American man in a fedora was remonstrating with one of the protesters, whose long blond hair hung from beneath a knit cap. But things were winding down. There was a sense that, like the campaign itself, it had been fun, but now it was time to go home and get some sleep.

"As long as nobody gets hurt -- that's the main thing," said the man in the fedora. "You guys are entitled to voice your opinion. As long as you're not trying to hurt anybody, and nobody's hurting you, it's just another night in San Francisco."